Mets, weather gang up on Phillies in loss

By
Dennis Deitch, Delaware County Daily Times

Sunday, September 22, 2013

PHILADELPHIA – The Phillies hadn’t failed to win 80 games in a season since the start of the new millennium. That officially changed with a smattering of fans in the stands and a tarp on the Citizens Bank Park diamond Saturday night.

The Phillies saw their string of 12 straight 80-plus win seasons – the longest active streak in the National League entering the season and second to the Yankees’ 18 in the majors – end with a 5-4, six-inning loss to the Mets.

The end came when Tyler Cloyd hit a wall in the top of the sixth, allowing a leadoff home run to Daniel Murphy to open the inning that gave the Mets the lead, then had three more hitters reach base before getting the hook. Ethan Martin allowed two of the runners he inherited to score as former Phillies farmhand Travis d’Arnaud hit a double through a worsening rain and off the right-field fence to make it 5-1.

“We had a rough sixth inning,” Ryne Sandberg said. “The third time through the lineup (Cloyd) seems to struggle at times. He still has to be pinpoint with his command ... He’s had chances to pitch, and he’ll have another chance (against the Braves).”

And yet the Phillies didn’t let it end without a fight. Cesar Hernandez, who is hitting .314 during this 2013 cameo, led off the bottom of the sixth with a double, and doubles by Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley helped the Phils get within a run before Darin Ruf (2-for-3) picked a bad time to get aggressive and popped out on a bad 2-1 pitch from Mets starter Dillon Gee (12-10).

Hernandez, a second baseman by trade who is getting a chance to earn outfield starts with Ben Revere lost for the season, has done enough to convince the interim manager that his bat is major-league ready.

“I think one of his strengths is that he has a plus-bat,” Sandberg said. “He has an ability to hit the fastball, and also adjust to pitches. These games he’s playing, he’s facing pitchers he hasn’t seen before, and he’s making adjustments as the game goes along. I’ve seen him able to hit any fastball, so he’s geared for the fastball and adjusting to anything else.

“I think he makes good in-game adjustments to what he sees. To me, he goes up there with approaches … I also like with men on base he goes up there with a threat to drive someone in.”

While much of the focus on the Mets’ starting pitching this season was on rookie sensation Matt Harvey, Gee went over 200 innings in the game, and with an ERA of 3.54 he has been the pitcher the Phillies wish Kyle Kendrick would have blossomed as this season.

“Dillon has just been doing that the entire second half,” Mets manager Terry Collins said. “He has made pitch after pitch. He lost it a bit in the sixth, but that could have been the conditions.”

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Prior to the game the Philadelphia chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America honored Domonic Brown and Cliff Lee as the Phillies’ player and pitcher of the year for 2013, Kevin Frandsen as the Good Guy award winner, and erstwhile manager Charlie Manuel for getting his 1,000th career win before being fired last month.